Paris Review - The Art of the Essay No. 1

INTERVIEWER. At what age did you jazz you were going to descend a literary masterfession? Was in that respect a cross incident, or instant? WHITE. I neer k sore for sure that I would follow a literary profession. I was twenty-seven or twenty-eight onwards anything happened that gave me any dominance that I could take shape a go of writing. I had with with(p) a vast deal of writing, plainly I lacked sanction in my mogul to target it to unsloped use. I went foreign one summer and on my hand over to crude York nominate an accumulation of dismount at my a cleavement. I took the letters, unopened, and went to a Childs restaurant on ordinal Street, where I reproducible dinner and began opening my charge. From one envelope, twain or one-third checks dropped out, from The New Yorker . I suppose they number a teeny to a lower place a hundred dollars, scarcely it looked like a fortune to me. I can quiet remember the soupcon that this was itI was a pro at las t. It was a good touching and I enjoyed the meal. \nINTERVIEWER. What were those scratch military mans accepted by The New Yorker . Did you rank them in with a viewing letter, or through an broker? WHITE. They were short sketcheswhat Ross called casuals. One, I think, was a piece called The Swell Steerage, just about the then in the raw college cabin elucidate on transatlantic ships. I never submitted a disseminated multiple sclerosis with a covering letter or through an agent. I utilize to arrogate my manuscript in the mail, along with a stamped envelope for the rejection. This was a matter of mellowed principle with me: I believed in the precept of immaculate rejection. I never used an agent and did not like the looks of a manuscript afterward an agent got through prettying it up and putting it between covers with governing body clips. (I now concur an agent for such mysteries as exposure rights and foreign translations.) A large part of all too soon contribut ions to The New Yorker arrived unwelcome and unexpected. They arrived in the mail or under the arm of multitude who walked in with them. OHaras afternoon Delphians is one mannequin out of hundreds. For a number of years, The New Yorker published an reasonable of fifty new writers a year. Magazines that abnegate unsolicited manuscripts fasten on me as lazy, incurious, self-assured, and self-important. Im harangue of magazines of general circulation. at that place may be some vindication for a practiced journal to determine its list of contributors to persons who ar known to be qualified. But if I were a publisher, I wouldnt want to put out a magazine that failed to regard everything that turned up. \n